I must now return to the discussion of the excellence
Site Byzantium.
of the site of Byzantium. The length of the
channel connecting the Pontus and Propontis
being, as I have said, a hundred and twenty
stades, and Hieron marking its termination towards the
Pontus, and the Strait of Byzantium that towards the Propontis,
—half-way between these, on the European side, stands Hermaeum, on a headland jutting out into the channel, about
five stades from the Asiatic coast, just at the narrowest point
of the whole channel; where Darius is said to
have made his bridge of ships across the strait,
when he crossed to invade Scythia. B.C. 512. In the rest of the channel
the running of the current from the Pontus is much the same,
owing to the similarity of the coast formation on either side
of it; but when it reaches Hermaeum on the European side,
which I said was the narrowest point, the stream flowing from
the Pontus, and being thus confined, strikes the European coast
with great violence, and then, as though by a rebound from a
blow, dashes against the opposite Asiatic coast, and thence again
sweeps back and strikes the European shore near some headlands called the Hearths: thence it runs rapidly once more to
the spot on the Asiatic side called the Cow, the place on
which the myth declares Io to have first stood after swimming
the channel. Finally the current runs from the Cow right up
to Byzantium, and dividing into two streams on either side of the
city, the lesser part of it forms the gulf called the Horn, while
the greater part swerves once more across. But it has no longer
sufficient way on it to reach the opposite shore on which Calchedon stands: for after its several counter-blows the current, finding
at this point a wider channel, slackens; and no longer makes
short rebounds at right angles from one shore to the other, but
more and more at an obtuse angle, and accordingly, falling
short of Calchedon, runs down the middle of the channel.